1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates in general to the field of wireless communications and more specifically to the design and implementation of a modified ground plane approach to improving antenna self-matching and bandwidth.
2. Description of the Related Art
It is desirable for handheld devices to operate and support different communication standards and technologies. With the existence of several communication standards such as GSM 800/900/1800/1900, UMTS 2100, Bluetooth 2450 MHz, and 3GPP LTE standard (expected to operate at 700 MHz and/or 2600 MHz.), there is an ever mounting pressure on antenna designers to develop antenna designs that support all of the above frequency bands and fit the antenna in a small, slim, and stylish device. An additional requirement is present handsets that conform to the LTE standard support two receive antennas.
Attempting to develop an antenna that provides multi/broad-band performance and maintains a low profile and a compact size at the same time can be challenging. To realize a good antenna broadband self-match, certain antennas have been proposed with the idea of folding a monopole into its ground plane creating a two dimensional planar structures. One possible disadvantage of this approach is that the antenna will occupy a large surface on the PCB board. In addition, the antenna will not have a usable bandwidth below 3 GHz. Other antennas have been proposed which include the idea of folding a ground plane 90 degrees to form a corner-like reflector. While this approach potentially improves antenna performance, this idea is still a conventional approach that does not realize true broad-band performance.